How much carbon does a flight to space release?

Answers

It is hard to judge whether it can be classified as too much, but you can be the judge of that. In the launch process alone, a US shuttle uses 3.5 million pounds of gasoline. Let me put this in perspective, one shuttle launch uses an equivalent of 2 minutes of gas consumption in the US. The level of pollution each shuttle launch also depends on the chemical composition of the fuel. lthough those numbers above seem heavy, it is still infinitesimal compared to the carbon emissions from burning coal and petroleum.